Guns, Statistics, and Social Science

 

Another day, another mass killing at a school.  This time Nashville. 

But unfortunately and predictably there will be another mass shooting. Predictably there will be the same polarized political debate that results in a policy stalemate. And predictably the debate around guns will center on the usual stereotypes and myths that continue to confront mass killings in America.

 

The NRA will trot out  that the problem is not too many guns or the type of guns but that there are not enough in the right hands.  It will join a US Supreme Court in contending that the Constitution protects our right to possess guns (especially handguns) in our homes and perhaps on the streets for self-defense. Progressives will demand new gun control legislation, calling for bans on assault weapons, purchase delays, and background checks.  Across these debates facts take a backseat to myths.

 

Social science research can both inform and muddle the debate on  guns in America and reinforce and dispel the myths or pop culture views informing what our policy responses and options should be.  Let’s use good research here.  What do we know?

 

The Problem of Mass Killings

            Mass millings such as what happened in Louisville are tragic.  But mass shootings pale in comparison to other forms of gun violence.

            Mother Jones maintains a database on mass killings, defined as four or more individuals killed in a public place. They began assembling the database in 1982 and updated to Louisville.  During that 41-year period there have been 1101 killed, another 1885 wounded.  Of the 141 incidents, 22 are school-related.  Sixty-six of the assailants had some history of mental  illness.  Finally 99 of the incidents involved weapons labeled as semiautomatic and seven as assault.

 

Gun Deaths in America

            Let’s do  some comparisons.

            According the Center for Disease Control, in 2020, there were 24,292 suicides that involved guns.  In one year there were 22 times more suicides with guns compared to mass killings in America in 41 years.

            Alternatively, the  Gun Violence Archive focus on four or more shootings, even if no one dies.  Since 2013 they calculate 144 mass shootings with total dead and wounded as 7,740.    One year of gun-related suicides is still  more than 3.1 times the number of mass shooting injuries in ten-year period. 

            Handguns are the gun of choice for 69% for males and 88% of time for females when committing suicide.   In crimes, among the approximately 19,400 homicides in America in 2020, about 57% were probably with handguns.  Simply put, of the 45,222 gun deaths in America in 2020, less than one-percent were mass shootings that took place with assault-type or semi-automatic weapons.

            Finally, there is little evidence that guns are used for self-defense and instead are more likely to be  used  against another member of a household or for suicide that to thwart an intruder.

            All gun violence is bad, but mass shootings with  assault guns pale in comparison to  hand gun suicides and other forms of homicide. If we really wanted to affect gun violence in America we would be better served targeting resources on handguns and addressing the issues of suicide and the reasons why people kill in general. 

 

 

The Myth of the Mentally Ill

            The Mother Jones database alone should dispel the mentally-ill bias.  Sixty-six  of the approximately 141 shooters had a history of mental illness, 17 did not, the remainder is indeterminate.  Given these statistics, there is nonetheless a belief that mental illness is connected to mass shootings.  Yes, that is partially true, but this does not provide a complete picture of the connection between mental illness and gun violence.

 

Based on mass shooter research, there is a profile that such individuals are mentally ill and therefore we need to screen for this when it comes to access to guns.  Additionally,  in seeking to craft a profile of a mass shooter, studies seek to look at other variables, such as perhaps childhood trauma, unstable family structure, stress, or neighborhood characteristics.  There are problems in making these claims.

 

The first is a problem of reverse engineering.  By that, we do case studies of mass shooters and create a profile of who they are.  The goal here is to develop a screen and identify possible future shooters.

 

Reverse engineering here is dangerous.  What counts as trauma or unstable family structure, for example, is not well defined.  With that, moving from saying all mass shooters had X traits runs the same risks of stereotyping as do other forms of profiling. Profiling originated in efforts to predict who would hijack airplanes in the 1970s to eventually racially profiling and auto stops in the 1990s and then Muslim profiling after  9/11.

 

Not everyone who has a mental illness is violent or dangerous.  The National Institute of Health estimates that in 2021 57.8 million adults in the US have some form of a mental illness.  At most, only a small fraction are violent.   The American Psychological Association notes that if a person has a mental illness there may be other risk factors that are associated with violence, but mental illness alone is a poor predictor of violence.  Of those with a severe mental illness, 2.9% had committed a previous act of violence within the past four years compared to 0.8% for the general population.  Note the emphasis on severe mental illness, not all forms of mental illness.  For all individuals with all forms of mental health issues, barely one-percent are violent—about the same rate as the general population.

 

Moreover,  a better risk factor tied into violence, according to the APA, is substance abuse.   The Center for Disease Control lists many factors that lead to violent behavior, including substance abuse, emotional problems, family, and neighborhood factors. But here is the problem, not everyone who had childhood trauma, grew up in bad neighborhoods, or faces stress is violent and becomes a mass shooter.    In fact, the vast majority  of these individuals do  not exhibit this behavior.

 

Using case studies with small samples to determine the profile of mass shooters and then making that a predictive tool to inform public policy is highly problematic.  It is not the  problem of the ecological fallacy—extrapolating general population characteristics to make claims about individuals—but instead the atomistic fallacy of making incorrect assumptions about a population based on the traits of some individuals.  This is an inductive problem of rendering false generalizations.  It is also the classic mistake of confusing correlation with causation.  Mental illness may appear to correlate with mass shooters, but bad sampling and faulty  assumptions  render bad social science and predictions. It is using anecdotal and low number case studies to render broader conclusions.

 

Conclusion

            There are several conclusions.  Mass shootings are a problem but relatively insignificant in terms of gun violence.  Handguns are a far bigger problem than assault weapons.  Using mental illness as a predictor of  gun violence or mass shooter profiles is under and over-inclusive of who commits such violence, and the same may be said of other forms of profiling.  At best we may have some factors that are associated with gun violence, but using them as a predictive screen is at best porous.

 

Contrary to Second Amendment defenders, we probably need to address the issue of handgun availability because simply relying on profiles will not address overall gun violence in America.  And contrary to those who focus on assault weapons in mass killings, this fails to capture the broader and more significant problem of gun violence in America  and who commits it.

Improving Minnesota education: What does the evidence say really works?

 This blog originally appeared in the Minnesota Reformer.

Minnesota  has a racial disparities problem. This includes education.

Minnesota Department of Education statistics point to Black and other students of color scoring 30 points or more lower on achievement tests compared to whites.  In 2019 the U.S. Department of Education ranked Minnesota the worst in the nation for racial disparities.  In 2022 WalletHub placed the state second worst in terms of racial equality in education.

Even beyond race, the quality of Minnesota schools is slipping as measured by national standards.

But with the DFL having trifecta control of the House, Senate and the governor’s office, and a $17.5 billion surplus, they vow to “fully fund” education.  This funding aims to pay for special education, free food for students, smaller class sizes and better pay for teachers.

While these proposals are laudable, they raise two questions:

1. What impact will all this new spending have on the quality of schools and educating students?
2.  How will this spending address the racial disparities gap?

So far little has been said in terms of how these issues will be addressed by new spending. Assume for the sake of argument Minnesota is serious and wants to improve student performance and mitigate the disparities gap. What actually works?  What does the evidence show in terms of what can be done to improve education?

There are a wealth of micro factors that impact student learning — such as good curriculum and classroom management — but what types of macro or structural factors impact student learning?  If one has a finite amount of dollars, what is the best way to spend it?  What impacts learning the best?

More money spent on education does improve outcomes. But the money has to be spent correctly. View spending as an opportunity cost or cost-benefit issue. In other words, what type of spending yields the best results in comparison to other expenditures.

First,  teachers probably deserve to be paid more. There are only modest increases in student performances that are associated with increased pay for teachers. Beyond a bachelor's degree, there is also only modest evidence that increasing teachers' credentials improves learning outcomes. Good teaching that excites or stimulates students promotes learning.

Smaller class sizes have some impact on learning, but only in some cases — perhaps grade school — but again the impact is modest compared to other reforms.

Apple has spent a fortune convincing people that spending on technology improves learning, but the evidence fails to show it. Technology, if it makes learning fun, might foster performance, but in itself it does not improve student achievement. For eight years I was editor-in-chief of a teaching and learning journal and never was there a credible article submitted to me that proved more tech toys improved learning.

Beyond ensuring that children are well-fed and not hungry, providing free meals to  students facilitates leaning. For a generation of us who grew up hearing that it is hard to learn when your stomach is empty, the evidence supports that. Additionally, gun violence, especially at schools, impacts student achievement.

But the biggest impacts on student performance have little to do with what happens in the classroom.

First, contrary to claims by many Republicans (though not only Republicans), there is little evidence that school vouchers or charter schools are cost effective ways to improve student performance. In fact, charter schools may also exacerbate segregation, which leads to greater racial learning disparities.

There is little evidence that single-parent households are associated with student achievement.  However, parental involvement, especially in terms of supporting teachers and encouraging their child to learn, positively impacts student achievement.

Increasing learning time is correlated with student learning.  The same is true for year-round schooling, which especially benefits those from low-income families.

What really impacts learning and racial disparities, however, is poverty, especially segregated schools and housing.

Minnesota has a long history of residential segregation which impacts schooling and learning. Overwhelmingly student achievement is correlated with poverty. Children who live in high or concentrated poverty neighborhoods generally do worse in school than those who do not live in them.

Students who come from segregated neighborhoods generally also do worse. Targeting funding to low-income school districts and addressing the disparities in funding between them and better funded districts overall improves student outcomes and addresses education racial disparities perhaps better than any other policy.

What do we learn from all these studies?  If Minnesota really wishes to improve educational quality, it first needs to address the way we fund and structure our schools. We should not fund them based on local property taxes but instead equalize funding across the state.

We should  also consider longer school days, year-round school, and remediating residential segregation. Providing free meals and  addressing school violence can help. We also  need to do more to facilitate family support for their children.

When I took my first teacher’s education class, the professor drew a triangle on the board and labeled the three corners family, community, and education.  The professor said that it takes all three to educate. He was correct. The factors that impact student achievement go well beyond what happens in schools.

Merely spending more money does not improve student achievement. We need to directly address poverty as well as how economic and racial segregation impact student performance.

Unfortunately, none of the proposals that I know of being offered by the DFL or the Republicans do that. In fact, many of the things we are doing, such as charter schools, only make matters worse. To really reform education in Minnesota means going after the way we fund  and organize schools and how money is spent.

Neither party, it seems, is willing to risk alienating suburban voters to do that.

Should the Minnesota DFL fear the electoral reaper? Probably not

 My latest blog is from Minnpost Community Voices, March 2, 2023.

Should the Minnesota DFL fear the electoral reaper? Probably not

Trends suggest that unless the Republicans change their policy positions they are unlikely to be an electoral recipient of voter backlash of DFL policies in 2024 or in the near future.

By David Schultz

The Minnesota DFL has a state government trifecta with control of both legislative chambers and the governorship for the first time in a decade. They are moving one of the most progressive agendas in the nation. Some contend they are overreaching and will pay the political price come 2024. Is that true? The numbers suggest no.

Minnesota is one of 39 states with a one-party legislative trifecta. Of those, 22 are Republican and 17 are Democrat. Across these 39 states, single party control means winner-take-all politics where because of pronounced political polarization, the governing party moves its agenda without real support from the other party.

Minnesota is one of those states. In just a few weeks the DFL has codified abortion rights, adopted anti-discrimination legislation, adopted renewable energy legislation, granted ex-felons voting rights and permitted undocumented individuals to secure driver’s licenses. And we have not even gotten to how they plan on spending the $18 billion surplus on not simply one time programs (of which much of the money represents), but on structural items such as education and rent subsidies that have long term fiscal commitments. “Go big and then go home” seems to be the motto.

Yet some argue the DFL is overreaching.

Their abortion bill goes beyond what Minnesota public opinion seems to support according to critics. Licenses for the undocumented goes too far, and perhaps legalization of recreational marijuana is not a high priority for  suburbanites who want the DFL to address crime and public safety  issues. These bills along with others portend overreach with voter pushback in 2024.

But don’t count on the backlash. It may never happen.

Whether the DFL agenda makes good public policy is not the subject of this commentary. What is the subject is whether the Minnesota Republicans pose a viable challenge to the DFL in 2024 in the nine or so suburban House seats that will determine control of that chamber.

Consider first that the DFL may simply say that moving and securing their agenda while they have the chance is a once in a generation opportunity.  What they are moving in many cases is structural legislation that will be hard to undo in the future. Once many of these laws are in place there is no real viable way to unwind them. Moreover, the DFL is responding to their constituents and if elections mean anything it is translating voter preferences into public policy.

Additionally, only the House is up for election in 2024. Barring unforeseen circumstances, the DFL will still hold the Senate and governorship until 2026 even if they lose the House. There is no serious chance of repeal in the near future. Moreover it will be a presidential election year where turnout will favor Democrats. If Trump were to get the party nomination again – a real possibility – he will hurt the Republican chances to pick up crucial suburban seats where he is very unpopular.

Plus, the Republicans have a problem longer term. They have failed to win statewide office since 2006 and have not won the presidency in Minnesota since 1972. The state GOP party is in disarray and seems to have financial difficulties. The Republican poor showing in the state is reducing the probability that national money will flow to Minnesota, which is looking less and less like a swing state and more like California.

And while a lot can change, the Republicans neither have a farm team from which to recruit a viable statewide candidate in the near future (which Republican has any hope of beating Sen. Amy Klobuchar in 2024?) nor do they have policy positions that seem to resonate with majorities of the Minnesotans. For example, part of the reason the DFL moved its abortion legislation is that Republicans, including  Scott Jensen and Rep. Michelle Fischbach, 7^th District, wanted to ban it. They and Republicans were never willing to compromise on the issue and paid the price. The same can be said on guns and perhaps other items.

But perhaps the most important reason why the DFL don’t fear the electoral reaper is demographics. Demographics are not destiny and the DFL will be sadly mistaken if they think it is. Candidates, messages, and strategy still matter.

While in 2022, 2020, 2018 (excluding Klobuchar), and 2016 the DFL won only 12, 13, 20, and nine counties, it is winning the counties that matter. Five counties in 2022, Dakota, Hennepin, Olmsted, Ramsey and Washington account for nearly 46% of the registered votes and 46.5% of the actual voters. While nearly 70% of those registered to vote cast ballots in the big five counties and in the rest of the state, Democrats are winning these five by an average margin of more than 25%.

Moreover, nationally and in Minnesota rural or non-metro voters cast their ballots for Republicans, with white working class being the core base for that party. While short term Minnesota’s rural counties are growing because of the pandemic and perhaps urban crime, longer term they face a severe population decline. Nationally, white working class are in decline as the nation diversifies, and the same is true in Minnesota. With reapportionment over time, fewer and fewer seats will go to Republican-leaning areas, reducing even the GOP’s regional voice and influence.

The Republican base is literally dying off.  It is gradually being replaced with voters more likely to support the agenda and issues the DFL is supporting. Perhaps they do not endorse it as far reaching as the DFL is pushing the policy agenda right now. But trends suggest that unless the Republicans change their policy positions they are unlikely to be an electoral recipient of voter backlash in 2024 or in the near future.